(Source: vivalatupac, via johngotty)

some senior portraits

the oregon skies have opened up once again…seeya later, sun.

i’ve been ipod-less for about three weeks now, and its killing me, especially with so much good music floating around right now.and when i say good music, i mean hip hop. and when i say floating around, i mean free mixtapes on the internet.

i get a sinking feeling when i can’t keep up with all the quality projects. my days are too busy to be tethered to a laptop when i want to listen; most of the time i play music on the road or when i’m walking around campus. i feel like most projects today should be digested on the go and mixed with life. i don’t like listening to hip hop when i’m surrounded by familiar walls and florescent lights, but rather when i can feel the concrete of the street and the rhythmic beat of my steps.

now i try to recreate the sound in my head, but it isn’t the same. i forget lyrics and repeat the same hook until the song loses its magic.

So I’m doing the stereotypical thing, sitting in a café drinking black coffee out of ceramic mug. I’ve got my Levi 501’s on, I haven’t shaved in a week, I’m listening to Bon Iver and glowering and everything that moves. Could be reading for class right now, but I’ve recently become ambivalent about the course because many of my fellow students have admitted to skipping entire books. I’ve read most everything assigned front to back, but I usually have nothing to say afterwards. It’s international women’s literature, and it’s all starting to sound the same.

The stories are poignant, but the reoccurring themes are predictable. Sex is a weapon and a tool of control, men and women never communicate effectively with one another, hatred festers over time and words go unspoken, and only after someone dies does the narrator realize that even though their spouse was a) abusive b) stupid/crass c) emotionally disconnected, they still ache for presence that is gone.

The narratives are multigenerational and told in retrospect through diaries, tape recordings, all encompassing accounts where the characters express their deepest thoughts with the remarkable (read: thoroughly unrealistic) transparency. Also, there is the presence of magic, which manifests itself through clairvoyance, telekinesis, and the appearance of spirits. These elements may seem compelling, and certainly are when packed into 400 or so pages, but I feel like I’ve been reading the same 1200 page epic. And it’s getting tiring.

The last thing I want to do is subjugate the female voice in fiction by generalizing, but I feel like I’ve been reading a stream of very well written Lifetime movie scripts. And maybe this feeling stems from packing all these works in a few months of reading. The Rice Mother by Rani Manicka, The House of Spirits by Elizabeth Allende, The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich…all excellent works, but read back to back at your own peril because I’m stuck in apathetic no man’s land (pun intended) because of it.

Can anyone suggest some works by female authors that differ from my description above?

everything seems to pile up at once, and before i can blink weeks pass in a blur as i move from assignment to assignment. there’s nothing worse to me than spending so much time on work that means so little. i read over 300 pages of fiction a week between my two literature classes, which means hours in the library with little conversation, because i can’t read without some degree of isolation. i’m so busy reading other people’s stories and thoughts that reality is lost in the onslaught of never-ending fiction. its scary to wake up from an extended period of auto pilot and realize that i can’t remember the last time an original thought emerged from my synapses, when i was really moved by life rather than prodded along by its obligations.

and i feel like important conversations, meaningful interactions are lost to my sense of overwhelming tedium. i’ve learned that i need to handle stress with more grace, and receive conversation with less trepidation. what i need is radical rearranging of priorities.

a list of proposed changes:

more creativity. this means carrying my camera around and taking photos of situations or scenes i find interesting, funny looks from onlookers be damned. i should no longer make excuses not to take the pictures that pop into my head when i look around. a corny slogan from a motivational poster comes to mind: “you always miss one hundred percent of the shots you don’t take.”

less negativity. it’s contagious, and i really have no right to complain. a roof over my head, food in my stomach, awesome friends. and macbook pro.

expression. no more drifting around like a ghost. if i see somebody i recognize, i’ll acknowledge them instead of pretending to be preoccupied with my cellphone.

i spent the better part of 5 hours last sunday recording sound for a student documentary called The Transients. My friend Taylor Kanen (@traveling_films) came up with concept: hop on the public rail system in portland and talk to people about life. he was inspired by the human tendency to disengage from the world while in public places; to throw headphones in and actively avoid any sort of interaction with those around us. he wants to show the multitude of stories that surround us at any give time, the stories that go unheard because we’re unwilling to hear.

It was an interesting experience, because I’ll be the first to admit that I’m guilty of retreating to my own little world when surrounded by strangers. Taylor did a great job of engaging people in conversation, though the first few minutes were inevitably awkward. its tough to get people to open up in a significant way in 15 minutes, especially when they’re absorbed in the happenings of the day. regardless, we managed to get some interesting insights from an ex-low budget filmmaker and graphic novel enthusiast who lives with his mother, an italian employed by an international semi-conductor corporation, and an 18 year old hooper hoping to get a scholarship to play ball at the collegiate level.

The talented Nathan Moyer (http://nathanmoyer.tumblr.com/) is handling the cinematography, and got some excellent shots even though i was tethered to him and constantly got in his way (the whole sound-guy thing is new to me). I got some interesting looks waving my mic around, which looked like an oversized gun.